at least two townships in aid of state college education. And one of the first definite plans in America for a state university was embodied in the Michigan act of 1817, which planned a "Catholepisternaid, or University of Michigan" somewhat on the idea of Napoleon's Imperial University of France." Twenty years later, the legislature provided for the organization of the present University of Michigan and stipulated that "there shall be a department of agriculture, with competent instructors in the theory of agriculture, including vegetable physiology and agricultural chemistry, and experimental and practical farming," " but it was not until some time later, when the farmers made an organized effort for such instruction, that provision was made for these courses. The Michigan constitution of 1850 directed that the legislature shall provide for the establishment of an agricultural school." Seven years after this the Michigan Agricultural College was opened.

66

Yale College in 1846, provided courses in agriculture under Professor John P. Norton, who, while at Yale published enough works on the subject to help create so great a demand for other teachers of agricultural chemistry that within two years Yale established a regular course for the preparation of teachers. The nucleus of experiment station work was begun in 1847 by the opening of "a laboratory on the College grounds, in connection with their departments, for the purpose of practical instruction in the applications of science to the arts and agriculture."

99 24

In New York the agitation for a state college was continued by Governor Hamilton Fish, who in 1849 declared to the legislature that he could not "too strongly recommend the endowment by the State of an agricultural school." A chemical laboratory for the analysis of soils and fertilizers was established at Albany by a private society at this time, and eleven years later the New York State Agricultural College was opened.

In Massachusetts, early public movements to foster education seem to have resulted in the instruction of agricultural chemistry at Amherst College in 1843, as well as at Harvard. The Massachusetts senate passed a bill in 1850 to found a state agricultural

college. After defeating the plan, the House compromised and agreed to a proposal to send a professor to Europe to study the agricultural schools. Within three years Amherst College began instruction in agriculture, in which taught Dr. W. S. Clark, who later became president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The Farmers' College at College Hill, Ohio, which was one of the pioneer agricultural schools, announced its relationship with the national government through its experimental farm and its proposed extension work in its catalogue of 1854-55. It stated that the experimental farm would be used for exhibiting the characteristics of various seeds "received from the United States Patent Office, and from other sources, domestic and foreign; and when their merits are experimentally determined, they will be held for distribution throughout the country, accompanied with a full and explicit history of their habits, growth and culture. Provision was also to be made for machinery and workshops.

99 25

The first practical plan for the larger state university, as it is now functioning in coöperation with the Office of Experiment Stations, to receive any considerable attention from legislators, however, was that drafted by Professor J. B. Turner of Illinois College and reproduced in the 1851 report of the Commissioner of Patents. It was a "Plan for an Industrial University" of the State of Illinois. Connected with it was to be a sufficient amount of land for experiments, which were to be "tried on all the varied products of the farm, the fruit yard, the nursery, and the garden; on all modes of crossing, rearing, and fattening domestic animals." The university was to "be open to all classes of students above a fixed age, and for any length of time, whether three months or seven years," thus affording the popular winter short courses for

25

Quoted in Bailey, IV, 373.

26 From Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report, 1851, p. 39. After 1862 the presidents of private colleges in Illinois organized in opposition to the establishment of a state university. They desired to divide the federal aid among them, and they feared that a state university "must either exclude Christianity entirely and so be either atheist or pagan." Further details of the university plan and of its opposition are presented in Carriel, Life of Jonathan Baldwin Turner, pp. 74-266; Powell, Semi-centennial history of the University of Illinois; and James, The origin of the land-grant act of 1862, University of Illinois Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1910.

That the fears of ecclesiastics as to the moral welfare of state agricultural students were groundless was indicated by President A. W. Harris,

farmers and the regular graduate studies. Extension work was evidently in harmony with this plan, for he declared that no institution was a true university unless it taught "all those things which every class of citizens most desire to learn-their own duty and business for life."

When other state universities were chartered, and when other private colleges began to introduce courses in experimental agriculture, there was awakened among educators and among national government officers a national consciousness which helped to make effective the Land-Grant Act of 1862-the basis of the state experiment stations, and the foundation for a national Office of Experiment Stations.

The Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. The act of July 2, 1862, is popularly known as the "Morrill Act," and the colleges benefited thereby are denominated "the Land-Grant Colleges." That experimentation should constitute a major function of the land-grant colleges, is suggested by the provision in the act " for the purchase of lands for sites or experimental farms" and an annual report of "any improvements and experiments made." The need for a national Office of Experiment Stations and the precedents for the future growth of its functions, may be traced among the antecedents of the Morrill Act and in the very movement for it. Various persons have championed the names of originators of the land-grant college idea that was advanced by Congressman Justin S. Morrill of Vermont. But it now seems clear that the need for experiment stations and of a national agricultural agency related thereto was the mother of the invention of the Morrill idea in many men's minds. There were many precedents for agricultural experimentation and tuition and of national aid to that cause. The activities of two particular educators, however, seems to place them in the forefront of those who would advance the agricultural idea: Professor Jonathan B. Turner of Illinois former Director of the Office of Experiment Stations, former President of Northwestern University, then Secretary of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, when he suggested to the Association of American Agriculture Colleges and Experiment Stations in 1898 that the churches might provide "religious care and culture for the students who are members of the churches." Delivering his presidential address to the same body in 1901, he reiterated his conviction that there was "no better Christian education than the democratic, progressive, and brotherly work of the State University."

College and Captain Alden Partridge of the United States Army. Professor Turner aroused the interest in Washington by his "Plan for an Industrial University," which in 1851 was published in the annual report of the Commissioner of Patents; by his "Need of a National Bureau of Agriculture;" and by his activities in Illinois "for the purpose of obtaining a grant of public lands to establish and endow industrial institutions in each and every state in the Union." He had been influential, also, in the extension of practical knowledge to the farmer through the establishment of state and county fairs in the West. He and Abraham Lincoln were intimates from early manhood, and together they dreamed out "the hope of a new education in the practical things of life." Later, Turner corresponded with Morrill, and Lincoln promised Turner that if he were elected he would support the Morrill landgrant college bill. Turner also enlisted the support of Stephen A. Douglas.

27

The activities of Captain Alden Partridge were less political but more demonstrative in nature. Retiring from the superintendency of West Point, he located at Norwich, Vermont, a few miles from Mr. Morrill's home in Strafford. Here, in 1819, he founded the American Scientific, Literary, and Military Academy, which later became Norwich University. In his prospectus for 1820, Captain Partridge announced courses in engineering science, classics, agriculture, and military science; thereby formulating a working plan antecedent to that organized at the land-grant colleges forty years later, pursuant to the Morrill Act. This Norwich experiment became well matured before Morrill went to Congress, and although he was considerably younger than Captain Partridge, President Plumley of Norwich University reports "that Alden Partridge used to visit Justin Morrill when on his tramps and hiking expeditions and discuss with him his educational theories. There are a great many people now living who believe that the land grant colleges have Alden Partridge to thank

27 See Davenport, in Bailey, IV, p. 409: A comprehensive history of this movement is James, The origin of the land-grant act of 1862, in the University of Illinois Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1, (1910). See also, Powell, SemiCentennial history of the University of Illinois; Carriel, Life of Jonathan Baldwin Turner, pp. 74-266; Atherton, The legislative career of Justin S. Morrill; Dodge and Ellis, Norwich university history, 1819-1911, 3 vols., and Wiest, Agricultural organization in the United States, pp. 187-217.

for having inspired Justin S. Morrill." After the enactment of the Morrill Act, however, Norwich University refused to become the state agriculture college.

Debates in Congress subsequent to the introduction of the Morrill land-grant college bill on December 14, 1857, exposed the need of agricultural colleges and they were prophetic of the national relation to them. Some of the speeches indicate that the administrative policy of the future Office of Experiment Stations must be diplomatic rather than coercive. The national system of research, such as is now encouraged by the Office of Experiment Stations, was indicated by Senator Collamer of Vermont:

It is a great excellence of this bill that it foresees that no one system of agriculture, no one department of science or art, could possibly adapt itself to the varied condition of the various parts of this country. In one part of the country it is desirable to encourage, if you please, the cultivation of Irish potatoes, or flax, or oats; in another part of the country, the great object is to promote the cultivation and encourage the growth of cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice. Now, if you are to fit up an institution for instruction in this important branch of national economy, you could make no system that would be adapted to the varied condition of the different States of the Union; and hence, this bill proposes to give to the States themselves the means of adopting a course of agricultural education suitable to the wants and the condition of their respective communities. That is a great advantage and leading feature of the bill.

Jefferson Davis, however, who was then a Senator from Mississippi, did not think it was necessary for the national government to provide for such experiments. He declared that:

Agriculture needs no teaching by Congress. The wide extent of our country, the great variety of its soil and climate and product, render it impossible that there should be anything else than local teaching in relation to agriculture. The States are sovereign; and there is the care of the education of their youth, and their direction into any pursuits which the public welfare may require. This Government was instituted for no such purpose; and when it invades that prerogative of the States, it commits violence on the sovereignty of those by whom it is created.

Extension work by the colleges, however, was needed according to Senator Harlan of Iowa, who declared that his constituents preferred